On the Net

Coming Sunday

Read about the experiences of a few local runners who were at the 2013 Boston Marathon, which was hit by two bombs, and what they expect going back to that prestigious racing event this year.

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Prom is a big deal.

It is now and it definitely was in 1994 to this “had to wait until senior year” girl. I remember being so committed to looking good for that one evening in that one dress that I ate salad for lunch every day for two weeks.

It was monotonous. It was boring.

But that’s what made that actual day of prom so great. It was the opposite of all that. My hair was special, the dress was sparkly and the fingernails? They were fake and painted pink.

I’ve started likening that boring preparation process to training for a race. Training is hard and it can definitely be monotonous and boring.

But race day? It’s gloriously the opposite.

It’s a celebration of months of work with hundreds of other people and I’m definitely one of those who wants to stand out on that special day. And, to me, that means being sparkly. I wore a green sparkle skirt for each of the five half marathons I ran in 2013.

To other women, whose numbers have swelled in recent years at distance events such as the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon, which has seen female half marathon registrants top 63 percent since 2010, it means sporting a tutu over running shorts or capris.

It’s fun and it’s feminine, two things you don’t always feel as a woman runner. So why not feel that way on your special day, on race day?

I’m among plenty of women across the country who have the same ‘who cares how it looks, I feel great’ mentality when it comes to dressing up for race day. Another is Monika Allen, a brain cancer survivor from San Diego, who wore a Wonder Woman T-shirt and blue tutu during last year’s LA Marathon.

Self Magazine, however, put Allen’s photo from the race — in all its froufrou glory — on the lame side of the “BS meter” and said “people think these froufrou skirts make you run faster. Now, if you told us they made people run away from you faster, maybe we would believe it.”

Commence the “tutu gate” explosion across social media.

Runners, particularly the burgeoning number of women and mother runners, were ticked off. I’m among them.

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Running is a very “make it what you want” sport. It doesn’t require you to be a certain size, a certain gender or a certain age. But it does have some very basic rules and at the top of the list? “Thou shalt not make fun of another runner. Ever.”

Since Self magazine shamed Allen’s tutu-wearing race picture, female runners have banded together to show support for her, her tutu-making company Glam Runner and the cause it supports, Girls on the Run. Self has also apologized and followed up the incident by interviewing Allen about her illness, running and the tutus.

Since the story broke last week, women across the country have posted pictures of themselves, even after boring training runs, showing off the flowers in their hair and their sparkle skirts and, of course, their tutus, all in support of #tutupower (on Twitter and Instagram).

After all, even an everyday run is a milestone. And race day is like runner prom — so why not get all froufrou and sparkly?